


Tangles

by Howdoesthisthingwork



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Blood and Violence, Don't Judge Me, Down with the First Order, F/M, Force Bond, Jedi Training, Multi, Post TLJ, Resistance, Rey is a badass, Slow Burn, Swearing, ben solo redemption arch, future smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 11:48:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13589415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Howdoesthisthingwork/pseuds/Howdoesthisthingwork
Summary: Post TLJ. All the force had given her was loose ends. She knew even less now than she did a few months ago when she was scavenging way on Jakku. She still had no idea who she truly was, why the force was so strong in her, what should she do, and most pressing on her mind lately, why was she force bonded to Kylo Ren.





	Tangles

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first serious attempt at Fanfiction. I am opened to any ideas/ constructive criticism any readers want to give me. 
> 
> Please forgive my terrible grammar skills. English is the only language I know and I am shit at it. 
> 
> Also, I am totally winging this. :)

_Rey. . . do you see the truth?”_

The voice was soft and feminine and even though Rey knew she was sleeping it caught her off guard. The only voices she heard in the strange twilight sleep that the force always pulled her into were male. She felt a deep peace wash over her. She didn’t know who this woman was but felt such a power since of harmony. 

Flashes of memories that didn’t belong to her rushed in front of her eyes. A troubled brooding young man in Jedi robes stood before her. His anger was palpable and sparked across her skin uncomfortably. _My powers will protect us.”_

“Please, don’t do this.” The same tender voice begged. Rey turned to the left and saw a petite and beautiful woman standing beside her hands clasped together adding to her desperation. Rey was struck even in this loaded emotional moment how intricately dressed this woman was. Her hair was pinned back in an elegant knot at the base of her neck with loose pieces framing her face. The Jedi in comparison looked somehow disheveled despite the fact that his robes were neat and of a good quality. His shaggy hair was chestnut brown and shoulder length. It fell in a way that cast dark shadows across his eyes. 

_I’m scared.”_ She admitted.

_Don’t worry. I will protect you.”_

The memory dissolved as quickly as it came as Rey slid out of her twilight dreams and into the inky darkness of her bedroom. She rolled over and sighed. Since Master Skywalker died 2 months ago Rey threw herself into her Jedi training. She knew it was up to her to finish learning the way of the Jedi. Luke had sacrificed himself for her, Leia, and the last broken shards of the resistance. 

By day she would practice training with the help of other resistance members. Finn was particular helpful as he had training combat for most of his life. She would read the ancient texts she had stolen from Luke but struggled to understand all the meaning and when she could no longer make sense of the books she would go meditate. 

Rey wondered whose memories had come to her by way of the force. It was incredibly frustrating to Rey. All the force had given her was loose ends. She knew even less now than she did a few months ago when she was scavenging way on Jakku. She still had no idea who she truly was, why the force was so strong in her, what should she do, and most pressing on her mind lately, why was she force bonded to Kylo Ren. 

After Rey’s last meeting with Kylo she had put her foot down and tried her hardest to shut Kylo out of her mind fully and permanently. For the most part it worked which was something that she was thankful for at the moment. The resistance forces were greatly weakened. That had lost almost everything they had and only just found a deserted planet to occupy while they attempted to gain allies and supplies. It wouldn’t do any good to have Kylo Ren, newly appointed Supreme Leader poking around in her mind for intel. Not that he had tried much. 

She could feel flashes of what she suspected were regret from the man. This confused Rey even more. Last she saw him he was propositioning they rule the galaxy together while they stood 2 feet away from the Supreme Leaders’ body. She managed to escape with her life intact but her lightsaber in pieces. It was just another mystery to be solved in the chaos of her world. 

To make matters worse they had spent the first few weeks burying the bodies for all the resistance members who laid down their lives on that snowy forsaken planet. It was devastating to some of the resistance who had been together for so long they considered each other family. So Rey, Poe, Finn and a few others went to spare them from the horrors of the broken and batter bodies. 

It was grueling physical labor to unearth the frozen bodies only to dig proper graves for them but it was emotionally devastating. Some nights Rey would collapse in bed beyond exhaustion and sob for the broken galaxy she was apart of. The force would sometimes show her flashes of other warriors who were slain in battle decades sometimes judging from garb and setting centuries ago. 

How many more wars will the galaxies endure before it all becomes too much and there would be nothing left for either side? How many beings died fighting on both the light and dark? How many lives ruined? These thoughts would swirl around in her head until she had not an ounce of energy left in her body and she would fall asleep into her chaotic and disturbing dreams. 

 

_________

Rey stood in the middle of a busy hanger contemplating what to do. All around her members of the resistance were hard at work salvaging all that they could from the battering the last encounter with the First Order had dealt. Before her laid a broken and mutilated X-wing she was attempting to fix with tie fighter parts she had scavenged up on Craight. 

Old habits die hard.

“I think we can swap out the toasted modulators with the good ones in the Tie fighter. What do you think?” Poe asked as he wiggled out from underneath the scraps of metal that were once fully functioning ships. 

“Oh yes, definitely. We could also upgrade the shields with some of the Tie parts and a little extra work.” She replied as she set about striping the needed parts. 

Poe cracked a wry grin. “Who knew a lifetime of scavenging would come in handy when fighting the First Order.” 

Rey smiled back. “Ships I can handle no problem. I just wish my light saber was as easy to fix. I’ve managed to salvage my Kyber crystal but all the other components are shot. ” 

“Luke never mentioned anything to you?” 

“No, he didn’t and I honestly never thought to ask.” Sadness shot through her at her own words. She thought she had more time to train and learn but Kylo Ren had seen to that. Poe said nothing in response but Rey knew that Luke’s death hit Poe hard. He may not have lost a master but he laid down his life several time in Luke’s honor.

“I think when I am done with the modulators I will go mediate for a while. Do you mind?” Rey unclamped a torque wrench and slid a modulator out neatly. 

“Not a problem as long as you show me that shield thing later.” Poe replied and took the Tie part out of her hand. 

“Thanks Poe.” 

Rey left the hanger and walk through the maze of halls that led to out of the base. Since she woke this morning she could feel a distance humming with in the force. She had been ignoring it in the hope that it would go away. In the typical defiant ways of the force the opposite had happened and the humming had been progressively getting loudly. 

The resistance was currently on a lush and very green planet that she couldn’t help but admire. Coming from a wasteland planet she didn’t know so many shades of green existed not to mention so many variation of plants and wild life. 

Her favorite plant she had discovered so far was a large funneled shaped bloom that was light green at the stem and slowly faded to white so the tips of the petals were white. It was always very humid on this planet but she had much experience dealing with hot climates and found her self a shady clearing to settle herself in. 

She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths feeling through the force. She could feel all the life around her slowly but surely pulsating through the force. It still surprised her that even plants had consciousness and a place in the force. She could feel the spindly little roots that seeped deeply in the damp soil and the wild joy that pulsated with them when the sun touched them. 

She reached out further into the force trying focus on a distant humming sensation. Sweat trickled down her back and she could still feel the heavy air on her skin and shifted slightly in discomfort. The humming sound grew louder in her ears. 

What are you trying to show me?

A cool sensation trickled down the back of her neck as she felt something in the force latch on to her. 

_Fear.  
Remorse.  
Anger. _

The fleeting blurs of emotion flickered and burst before her eyes. She knew who this was and she steadied her self for what was coming. She knew it was a matter of time before Kylo Ren would break through the barriers she had created around the bond they had shared. She just had hoped it would have taken longer. Before her appeared a man with dark shoulder length hair, dark eyes, and a jagged scar across his cheek and brow. He was clearly in the middle of his own mediation session and as was usually with the force connection she could only see him. She hoped that was reciprocated for the sake of the resistance. 

Kylo looked at her, his eyes searching her face. Rey stared back, unwilling to back down waited patiently.

_“You’ve been hiding from me scavenger.”_

__

_“I am not feeling very hospitable toward a man who killed my master and attempted to murder all my friends. Never mind Han Solo.”_ She spit at him. Anger was welling up inside of her that she hadn’t felt since she saved the remaining resistance fighters from that vacant snowy planet. She had been so busy dealing with the chaos of the present that she barely had time to grieve. 

Confusion slammed into her. Kylo seemed unable to control his emotions this was nothing new as far as he was concerned and yet he seemed even more unstable than she had ever seen him. This surprised Rey. Without Snoke calling the shots Kylo was free to do as he pleased and had the galaxy’s strongest army at his every whim. 

_“ I know what I need to do. I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.”_

A flash of Darth Vader’s mask.

Snoke’s bisected corpse. 

_“ . . . rule the galaxy together.”_ A gloved hand reaching out toward Rey whose face was crumbling, tears welling in her eyes. The pateron guards lying dead and defeated at their feet. 

_“No Ben. . .don’t do this.”_

Rey yanked herself as hard as she could out of the memory. Anger such as she has never known rose up in her. How dare Kylo come to her with this now, especially in the wake of all that he has done. How dare he try to placate her. He didn’t spend weeks digging dead friends out of the snow so that they could be properly laid to rest. 

He did not spend every waking moment of the past 2 months attempt to bolster his beaten and broken friends. Rose had only woken up a couple of days ago. Now that Rey actually stopped to think about it that was his whole problem from the start. Ben Solo stood for nothing and so he gave himself over to the easiest emotions possible. 

_Anger._  
Fear.  
Greed. 

Which led him directly to the dark side. She thought of Leia and Han who had tried so hard to bring Ben Solo back into the light, she though of Luke who gave his life fighting his failed pupil. She thought of Chewie who witnessed Han’s murder and how he was still unable to kill Ben. 

All this pain and suffering simply because Ben Solo didn’t have the fortitude to stand for his own convictions. Instead he because a puppet to someone else ambitions and the galaxy paid a heavy price. 

_“Enough!”_ She screamed as the memory dissipated and Kylo reappeared before. 

_“You coward! How dare you appear before me and try to seek redemption and justified what you have done! I will tolerate no more from you!”_

Kylo Ren jumped to his feet his anger rising to meet hers. His teeth bared and eyes wild. He raised his hand and Rey felt pressure on her throat.

With all the strength she could muster she broke his grip on her throat and stepped so closed to him she was nose to nose with him. 

_“The Order may kiss your ass and call you Supreme Leader but I know the truth. You are a fucking coward. I see the light and the good within you and you refused to meet it not because you don’t see it yourself but because you don’t have the strength.”_

With that Rey wrenched herself away from Kylo Ren and whatever was anchoring her to him at that moment. She caught his face twist in anger as he faded from her vision and the dense woodland reappear. Rey reflexively jumped to her feet and promptly vomited.

Wiping her mouth roughly with the back of her own hand she straightened back up. Her thoughts jumped wildly from thing to thing. She knew she did irrevocable damage by finally losing her temper but it did not matter anymore. She knew what she needed to do now.

**Author's Note:**

> The flowers I was trying to describe are calla lilies. Feel free to leave any comments, kudos, or critics.


End file.
